About 280,000 children in New York City were set to be vaccinated in 1955. In 1954 the Salk vaccine was administered to a test group of 40,000 city children. Half of those received the real vaccine; half received a placebo. It is a measure of how orderly and intelligent people were back then that not a single parent demanded that their kid receive the actual vaccine or tried to influence the test.
The test program in 1954 went well, and the city geared up for the main event in 1955. That was before nurses gave shots, and it was when needles were sterilized for reuse. Doctors were notified and ready. The Polio Task Force assembled all of the materials, including 16,255 hypodermic needles, 156 gallons of alcohol, 800,000 cotton balls, 30,000 gauze pads, and even 1,100 white enamel mugs to hold alcohol for sterilizing.
The 1954 test showed that the rate of fainting for the shots was less among the children than for members of the U.S. armed forces. The kids were given an array of lollipops, and the doctors thought the issue of choosing the right color they wanted may have distracted them.
A form letter went out to the parents. Everything went well. Parents did not object. There were no conspiracy theories. There was no social media to spread conspiracy theories. There were kids in iron lungs who had contracted polio before the vaccine was developed. Robert Kennedy, Jr. was under two years old. He never got polio.
Most of the info for this post is from John McNulty, “Wipe and Jab,” New Yorker, (April 25, 1955).
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